


Mission Scrubbed

by hypatia



Series: The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Hackers in Love [16]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Leverage
Genre: Drunken Kissing, First Impressions, HaQ, Hardison is the softest, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, In-Universe Meta, Multi, Outtakes from other fics, Public Hand Jobs, Q Has Nightmares, Young Alec and Q shenanigans, planning for the worst, spy movies - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:15:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22948420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypatia/pseuds/hypatia
Summary: “Exactly how long have you been a criminal?”Q’s expression warned Bond that the answer was going to be pure snark. “Well, I stole a packet of Jammie Dodgers when I was six…”--Various outtakes and deleted scenes from fics in this series.Plus some meta notes on Q joining MI6.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Q (James Bond)
Series: The Incredibly True Adventures of 2 Hackers in Love [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568371
Comments: 16
Kudos: 83





	1. Debrief - Extended Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote Bond asking some additional questions in Contingency Plans: Debrief that I decided not to include in the final fic because they changed the focus more than I wanted. But they amuse me, so I'm sharing them separately. (You do need to have read Debrief in order for any of this to make sense.)
> 
> You can imagine these got asked in an AU were Bond is just a bit nosier. The facts are 'in series' canon, Bond just doesn't have them.

“So… you weren’t afraid to fly before Kandahar?” asked Bond.

“Not at all. It’s why I picked the Air Force. Alec and I used to fly everywhere…” he turned toward the bar, “Are we good on the statute of limitations?”

“We’re good,” confirmed Alec.

Bond looked puzzled.

Q waved a hand, “It pays to check these things before admitting felony… theft or wire fraud do you think Alec?”

“Good prosecutor would’ve charged us with both,” said Alec decisively.

“Hmm. Point. Anyway,” Q gave the cheeky grin that Bond was coming to think of as his ‘hacker smile’, “Alec and I used to hack airline ticketing systems and get ourselves cheap tickets.”

“Not free?” asked Bond.

“No. Free _looks_ like theft or fraud. Pick the right numbers and really cheap can look like a software bug.” Q looked smug. Then he sobered, “Now… drug me enough, and you can put me on a plane. But notice I’m the _object_ of that sentence... ‘Enough’ means so heavily sedated I can barely walk.” He shrugged, clearly trying to sound more self-possessed than he felt. “Not something I’m inclined to do for fun.”

“But you did… for MI6?”

“There were a few times it was,” Q paused for a long moment, “Obligatory.” Bond winced in sympathy.

Q gave Bond a look. “You cut a bullet out of your shoulder with a knife in the men’s loo at headquarters. Don’t tell me you don’t understand doing that to yourself.”

Bond hesitated for a long moment, then nodded.

~

“Why do you own a dance club in the first place?” asked Bond.

“We don’t. You said yourself it’s owned by… What were their names? Luke and Ian.”

Bond rolled his eyes, “Why do _Luke and Ian_ own a dance club?”

Q and Hardison exchanged a look across the pub. “Money laundering,” they said in unison, as if this were self-evident.

“Money. Laundering.” said Bond.

“We were hackers in our teens, acquiring money in quantities we couldn’t always explain,” said Q, dropping the pretense that he and Alec weren’t Ian and Luke. “We needed a laundry and we liked raves.”

“What was it you said? Everyone’s favorite excuse to dance and take E?” said Bond.

“Mmm,” agreed Q. “Though I haven’t done the latter in quite some time.”

“Because _someone_ thinks E stands for exhibitionist,” said Alec just loud enough to be heard.

“Hush you,” said Q. “We’re not telling _all_ my secrets today.”

“How do ‘two hackers in their teens’ buy a building if you weren’t already laundering cash?” asked Bond, deciding the prudent choice was to ignore _that_ exchange.

“We had set up an appalling fake charity with a website that could take online donations and put money into it from accounts we hacked. Ian and Luke were employees who got paid apparently legitimate wages. It worked until we started getting real donations from —terrible people— who expected us to actually do something with the money. We had enough for a down payment on the building, so we shut it down and moved on.”

“You were laundering money in your teens…” Q nodded. “Exactly how long have you been a criminal?”

Q’s expression warned Bond that the answer was going to be pure snark. “Well, I stole a packet of Jammie Dodgers when I was six…”

Bond gave him a long-suffering look. “You know what I meant.”

“Alec and I met while simultaneously hacking a computer system. We were twelve.”

“Now ask him what system they were hacking,” said Parker in a singsong voice.

Bond raised his eyebrows and looked at Q expectantly.

“Pentagon,” said Q, feral grin on full display.

“The _Pentagon_?” repeated Bond. “You were twelve.”

Q nodded.

“You hacked a foreign military’s computer systems. When you were twelve.”

Q nodded again. “Though I should probably admit, I selected it because I thought I’d get in _less_ trouble if I got caught hacking a _foreign_ military system than if I hacked a _British_ one.” He shrugged. “What can I say? I was twelve—Not long after I joined MI6, I had occasion to tell M about that. She nearly laughed herself sick.”

“Had occasion?”

“The Americans were being stingy with intelligence we needed, and she asked if I could hack them. She thought I said yes too quickly and that I was just being arrogant. I had to admit that I’d already done so on multiple occasions.”

Bond shook his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next big fic in this series is taking longer than I expected, so here's something different. Leaving this incomplete because I will probably have a couple more things to add later and I'll use this as a catch-all.


	2. Alternate scene: Good Soldiers Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A version of the 'club scene' from "Good Soldiers Know" that explains Alec's comment about E from the previous chapter.

“It was around that time we also learned such important life lessons as: there’s no point in trying to run a long con on people who are getting blackout drunk every night, don’t get high and drunk in front of the marks —even, or particularly— if they are also high and drunk, and there _are_ limits to how affectionate to get.”

“All in the same night?”

Will hesitated. “Yes, actually,” he finally admitted.

“It sounds like there’s an X-rated version of this story.”

Will sighed. “There is, but I wasn’t going to tell that one.”

“Come on, what have you got to lose?”

“Some last shred of dignity?” suggested Will.

“Aww. You weren’t using that anyway,” wheedled Dalton.

“I assure you I was,” insisted Will.

Dalton laughed weakly, wincing in pain and ending in a horrid sounding cough.

“All right,” said Will, relenting. “Our first run at this, we’d picked a group that was partying quite hard, visibly spending a lot of money…”

“Amateur mistake,” interrupted Dalton.

“Well, yes. _We were_. Anyway, a day or two in, we ended up in one of those curtained off rooms in a club. Plush couches, loud music, lots of alcohol and ecstasy. We all ended up drunk, high, and half-naked.”

Dalton raised his eyebrows and gave Will a look that was at once curious and amused. “Are we talking orgy here?”

Will gave an exasperated sigh. “Depends on your definition? To my knowledge, no one got more than a hand job. I ended up sitting in the lap of a guy twice my size with my shirt half off and my fly undone. He was rubbing off against my arse while his girlfriend had her hands up my shirt and her tongue in my mouth. Alec was kissing the guy and had one hand down my trousers. It was fantastic and overwhelming and then the guy grabbed my wrists to hold me still, and I came, loudly and publicly.”

Dalton gave Will another amused look.

“I should point out that my —little display— didn’t encourage even one of these twits to give us money. But for the rest of our stay, _everyone_ wanted to shag us, individually or together,” he rolled his eyes in exasperation. “It got tedious.”

Dalton chuckled softly. It sounded even weaker than his earlier laugh. “Sounds like you had a good time at least?”

“Fuck yes. So good I _wept_. I ended up clinging to Alec, tearfully babbling about how much I adored him. _Somehow,_ we made it back to our room and woke up with the worst hangovers of our _lives_. We made rules about mixing drugs and alcohol with work that morning. Well, it was probably more like mid-afternoon before we could function.”


	3. Safe to Shore: Brief Hardison POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drabble: A scene from _Safe to Shore_ written from Hardison's POV.

Soft morning light shone across the bed and Alec woke to the familiar feeling of Will sleeping beside him. At rest, the tension he’d carried much of yesterday had vanished. Alec knew that Will would wake when he moved so he simply appreciated the moment.

He’d awoken in the night to the equally familiar experience of Will’s nightmares. It had been a relief, of a sort, to find he still remembered how to comfort and soothe him with soft touches and murmured reassurances. A skill hard-won years before and used, from time to time, with his newer lovers as well.


	5. Threat Level (in-universe meta)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As promised in _Conservation of Pain and Joy_ here's some additional notes about Will and Alec's planning when Will joined MI6.

While Will was in hospital after the plane crash in Kandahar and after MI6 made contact, he and Alec did two things:

First, they watched every spy movie and TV show they could find. Both because it amused them and passed the time, but also because they wanted a shared set of tropes, quotes, and references to use when they communicated. Their favorites ended up being retired spy stories like _Hopscotch_ with Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson and _Ronin_ with Robert DeNiro and Jean Reno _,_ and _Spy Game_ with Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. Will tried not to think too hard about why that might be.

The in-universe equivalent of “James Bond” books and movies are about “John Fleming”. Agent Fleming was originally played by Christopher Lee.

Further _Hopscotch_ note: Hardison said “Wait! That’s the law and order dude! But. Young!” when he saw the character Joe Cutter (played by Same Waterston) on the screen for the first time.

Both Alec and Will joked and hoped that they were being paranoid. That their media-heavy ideas of how governments and intelligence agencies worked was overly critical and suspicious. But neither could set aside the possibility that it was as bad, or worse, than they feared. (Reading anything by John le Carré did not reassure them.)

Second, they recognized that Will might someday be in a position where he had to communicate with Alec in code.

They began by establishing a way to indicate threat level.

Lowest to highest priority was originally:

  * “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
  * “Tell him about the Twinkie.”
  * “Danger Will Robinson.”
  * “Houston. We’ve had a problem here.”



After a particular episode of Dr. Who, they agreed to replace the Twinkie line, which they’d never been completely happy with, with “The Angels have the phone box.”

They’d agreed, that if they ever _did_ decide to end western civilization, the code would be “Nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

They also agreed that neither would ever set out to end western civilization on their own, it had to be unanimous.

They put significant work into securing a place (the sound booth at Callahan’s) where they could be confident no one could spy on them. After Will joined MI6 he continued to make upgrades to that security system as opportunities presented themselves. When they communicated, references to dance or music meant they needed to meet in person at Callahan’s.

If Alec needed help from Will, they both assumed he would need assistance fighting off another hacker or hiding himself from the authorities. Neither knew how much Will’s employment would hinder or facilitate his ability to assist. They knew they’d need to adjust to the realities as they came.

If Will ever needed to leave MI6 and needed Alec’s help, they had a set of codes for that as well:

“Setup the hopscotch board” meant planning phases.

“Playing hopscotch” meant time to leave.

Any mention of “Ronin” meant Will was compromised in a way that endangered Alec.

If Will ever sent “Dinner out” he was compromised in some way and he had no time to communicate anything else. Every device Will had access to that could communicate outside MI6 had a ‘panic button’ for him to send that phrase to Alec. Alec sincerely hoped he’d never see it.


	6. First Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deleted scene from _Safe to Shore_ \- Parker and Eliot's first impressions of Q.

“So what did you think of him?” asked Eliot after Will and Alec had gone to bed and he and Parker had settled back on the couch.

“Well, we knew Hardison had good taste,” she said grinning. “I like him. I don’t fluster him. But he’s anxious and in pain and needs some time.”

Eliot nodded.

“What do you think of him?” asked Parker.

“I think,” said Eliot solemnly, “that Hardison just introduced us to the most dangerous man either of us has ever met.”

Parker’s expression sharpened, “Tell me why,” she said.

“He’s _like_ Hardison but with my military experience and your morals. And he’s spent the better part of a decade building weapons and telling spies and assassins what to do,” said Eliot. “Don’t underestimate him because he wanted glitter on his popcorn.”

Parker grinned again. “Only the most dangerous people want glitter on their popcorn,” she said.


End file.
